{"id":16684,"date":"2018-01-29T15:00:08","date_gmt":"2018-01-29T21:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=16684"},"modified":"2018-01-29T15:14:18","modified_gmt":"2018-01-29T21:14:18","slug":"sun-times-sidelines-roeper-investigating-inflated-twitter-account","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2018\/01\/29\/sun-times-sidelines-roeper-investigating-inflated-twitter-account\/","title":{"rendered":"Sun-Times sidelines Roeper while investigating inflated Twitter account"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

<\/a> Richard Roeper<\/p><\/div>\n

The Chicago Sun-Times <\/a>has benched Richard Roeper, the veteran columnist and film critic, in the wake of a New York Times<\/a> report on the buying and selling of fraudulent social media followers.<\/p>\n

Editor-in-chief Chris Fusco confirmed the Sun-Times was investigating Sunday\u2019s New York Times story, which identified Roeper among numerous celebrities who bought Twitter followers from a company linked to a \u201cblack market\u201d of bogus accounts.<\/p>\n

\"We became aware this weekend of issues relating to Rich Roeper's Twitter account,\u201d Fusco said in a statement Monday. \u201cWe're investigating these issues. We will not be publishing any reviews or columns by Rich until this investigation is complete.\"<\/p>\n

Fusco, who met with Roeper Monday, would not say how long the investigation could take or speculate on what action could follow.<\/p>\n

Roeper did not respond to a request for comment Monday. He declined to comment Sunday.<\/p>\n

Among Roeper\u2019s 226,000-plus Twitters followers<\/a>, the New York Times reported, were some purchased from what it called a \u201cshadowy global marketplace for social media fraud.\u201d A company called Devumi sells Twitter followers and retweets to those who want to appear more popular or influential.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor just pennies each \u2014 sometimes even less \u2014 Devumi offers Twitter followers, views on YouTube, plays on SoundCloud, the music-hosting site, and endorsements on LinkedIn, the professional-networking site,\u201d the New York Times reported.<\/p>\n

Last week the Sun-Times announced <\/a>that it was bringing back Roeper\u2019s news column twice a week while retaining him as film critic. His first column was to have appeared Tuesday, but now all bets are off.<\/p>\n

Roeper, 58, has been a mainstay of the Sun-Times since he began as a freelance writer and editorial assistant in 1982. He was named a full-time columnist in 1987 and shifted to film critic following the death of Roger Ebert in 2013. The two hosted the nationally syndicated movie-review show \u201cEbert & Roeper\u201d from 2000 to 2008.<\/p>\n

A Chicago native who grew up in south suburban Dolton, Roeper graduated from Thornridge High School and Illinois State University.<\/p>\n

Roeper also contributes movie reviews to \u201cWindy City Live\u201d on ABC-owned WLS-Channel 7 and appears regularly on Roe Conn\u2019s afternoon show on Tribune Broadcasting news\/talk WGN AM 720. He is the author of eight books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Chicago Sun-Times has benched Richard Roeper, the veteran columnist and film critic, in the wake of a New York Times report on the buying and selling of fraudulent social media followers. Editor-in-chief Chris Fusco confirmed the Sun-Times was investigating Sunday\u2019s New York Times story, which identified Roeper among numerous celebrities who bought Twitter followers... Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16684"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16684"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16689,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16684\/revisions\/16689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}